


take a NAP you IDIOT

by kabrox18



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, ons you got it BAD bud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28336377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabrox18/pseuds/kabrox18
Summary: Panzer takes several hundred refugees and prisoners on his flagship, and things get... congested.
Kudos: 4





	take a NAP you IDIOT

Onslaught walks into the main war room, surprised to see Panzer half-slouched at the holotable. There’s no such thing as eyebags on Cybertronians, but he still looks haggard. His eyes are dim, his mouth twists in a half-frown and ticks at the corner from exhaustion, and his posture is closer to ’barely holding himself upright’ than the usual iron-stiff straight back he usually had.

“Sir?” he asks, voice low and tentative. Panzer shifts, minutely, a fluttering of armor plates following the motion. Not anger, but annoyance. Onslaught doesn’t speak again but instead, waits.

“Onslaught,” he eventually greets, and _that_ is colored with the irritation of someone made to respond when he doesn’t want to.

“I’m sorry, sir. Just wondering what you’re going here. It’s the skeleton shift.”

“My quarters are wall-to-wall with sleeping refugees,” he explains, sitting back in his chair and wincing a tiny bit. Just a flash. Onslaught wonders how long he’s been slumped in this room for.

“And you can’t sleep in it...?” he queries, moving to take a seat himself after setting his paperwork where it belonged.

“Primus, no,” Panzer replies, chuckling softly. Hollowly. Onslaught bites at the corner of his mouth, concerned over his leader’s gallows laugh. “I could never sleep around others. Not well, anyway.” He shrugs.

“So you’re looking for somewhere quiet to rest?”

“Quiet, and empty. All the rec rooms have more refugees. This is the only unoccupied room on the ship.” He rubs his thumbs into his eyes, expelling a sigh. Onslaught finds himself biting a little harder into his lip.

“When was the last time you—“

“Three weeks ago.”

“When we picked them up?” Onslaught hazards.

“Yes. I’m overclocking half my systems just to stay conscious now. It’s doing wonders for my already-frail sanity,” he mutters. “Primus cursed us with necessary defrag cycles, Onslaught. I swear it.”

“Never took you to be the religious sort, sir.”

“Hardly.” He snorts, softly. “I hate him.”

“Pardon?” Onslaught looks away, wondering if he could find some sheets and leave Panzer to nap here.

“Primus. I hate the fucker.”

Rare, to hear Panzer swear so openly, and rarer still for him to present anything resembling a religious conversation. He seemed allergic to them.

“You hate Primus?” Onslaught asks, puzzled. “But—“

“Spare me the sermon, Ons,” he says, flicking a hand in dismissal. Onslaught feels his spark do a jig. “Primus might have forged our sparks in his own, but he cursed us with mecha that brought about Functionism. And the Senate’s corrupt heads.”

“The two are not dissimilar.”

“I said what I said,” Panzer says, and suddenly those red eyes fix on him, sending artifacts of light spilling across his vision. “I never took _you_ to be the religious type.”

“I’m—not. But every mech that’s had their treads on a battlefield tends to believe in some higher power.” Panzer inclines his head at that, and Onslaught can see him filing that away for later.

“Don’t overexert yourself analyzing that, sir,” he says, a little quickly. Panzer’s whole face twitches, like he’s resisting the urge to laugh.

“Clever mech, Onslaught,” he says, apropos of nothing, and leans forward again, lacing his fingers together and resting his face to them. “I regret not getting a full defrag cycle before we did this,” he says, softly. Thoughtfully.

“What’s stopping you from resting now?”

“Oh, please.” Panzer pulls a face at him. A cute one. Onslaught silently keeps the image of it in his long-term memory bank. “I have things to do, and this ship would be up in arms fighting itself without me smacking you lot around every twenty minutes.”

“I can always come wake you up.” Panzer’s eyes refocus at that, irises spiraling narrow before reopening. He’s cooking up a threat. “Or set an alarm. There’s several hours before the early morning shift. Enough to at least get you back out of the red.”

The threat dies in those keen red eyes, and Panzer looks away.

“I guess.”

“Need a watch?” Onslaught asks.

“To sleep? No.” He frowns again. Onslaught finds himself wanting to hold his face and smooth that frown away, stroke or kiss the seam that pokes out from between his furrowed brows.

“Sheets?”

“Preferable, but not required. I fronted a rebellion, Onslaught. I can sleep wherever I need to.” It’s cutting, and Onslaught frowns behind his mask.

“I never doubted that, sir. But your comfort level could lend to a better, deeper defrag. Do more, than just... get you out of the red.”

“You’re a hen,” Panzer declares, voice gone soft again. “A damn hen.” His absence is increasing, and Onslaught watches as shutters flick across his leader’s eyes, fluttering in an attempt to ease their ache.

“Let me get you some sheets. You can tuck up in one of the corners, if you like.” Panzer just makes a low noise, a hum in the back of his throat. Onslaught takes that as permission to stand and retrieve the blankets and a pillow.

—

Onslaught creeps into the still-silent-dark of the war room much later, finding Panzer still slumped against the table. He’s shifted several times, shrugging the blanket from his broad shoulders. Onslaught delicately lifts it, wrapping him again. He can see the slow rise and fall of a manual vent cycle, and smiles to himself.

Panzer was wrong, at least a little. The ship hadn’t fallen apart yet, although he may be annoyed that it was slightly less perfect than usual. Onslaught makes a mental note to straighten everything up, and leaves his leader to sleep in peace, closing the door behind him.

“Continue to keep everyone out,” he murmurs to Äänivaara, who’s loitering near-ish the door. Close enough to keep everyone out, far enough to look like he’s there to do other things. 'Vaara looks up, faceless visor inclining slightly, and turns his attention away again.

**Author's Note:**

> Vaara is my [partner's.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TDiNtB/pseuds/TDiNtB) Much in the way Panzer is a Megatron, Äänivaara is a Soundwave.


End file.
